The Sims 3 – How to do a clean uninstall and reinstall on a Mac

These instructions are to completely delete everything Sims related from your Mac – CC/Mods/Saves/Downloads, everything (to manually uninstall a single EP/SP please read this guide). If you’re having problems with your game this is a last resort but it will only work if you really get rid of everything. Even then it’s not 100% guaranteed that your game will work again after reinstalling but it should give it the best chance possible. A lot of Preference files are left behind when you uninstall The Sims 3 using the Uninstaller in the Applications folder. In order to make sure you have a completely clean uninstall of the game, follow the steps below.

Please note that the Preferences folder has really important files in it so make sure you don’t delete ANYTHING apart from the files mentioned below. You can render Applications useless and potentially screw up the OS by deleting the wrong things. This is why Apple have hidden it from Lion onwards.

– If your Uninstaller isn’t working or has mysteriously disappeared you can still follow these steps but you must firstly trash your TS3 Applications and user data. To do this go to Finder > Applications and drag The Sims 3 folder to the trash. Remember to trash any shortcuts you have in your Dock and/or on your Desktop too. Next, go to Finder > Documents and trash the Electronic Arts folder. If you have other EA games in there DON’T trash this folder, instead open it and just trash The Sims 3 folder.

– If you have the Uninstaller use it to uninstall all your EPs, SPs and the Base Game. When you have deleted all of these you need to do the following:

For Leopard/Snow Leopard users:

– Open a Finder window, click on your Home/User folder (the one with the picture of the house next to it), open the Library folder in the right-hand pane then open the Preferences folder.

For Lion and subsequent versions of macOS:

– Make sure you are in Finder by clicking anywhere on the Desktop, it will say Finder in the menu bar, next to the Apple logo.– Click on Go. When the dropdown box appears press the Option key (alt) on your keyboard. The Library folder will now appear. Click on Library then open the Preference folder.

In the Preferences folder delete a folder called Cider Preferences, if it is still there, and The Sims 3 Preferences folder, if it is also still there. Now you need to delete any files that have Transgaming and Sims in the name. They will start with com.transgaming…… in the file name and look something like this:

Next, open the Caches folder in the Library folder and delete all folders that start with com.transgaming. In the Cookies folder (same Library folder) look for a file beginning with com.transgaming… and delete it (thanks to CPUGenuis at AHQ for finding that one!).

Note for those running Lion and subsequent versions of macOS – In the main Library folder there is a folder titled Saved Application State. In there you may also see a whole load of folders that look like this:

As you can see they have transgaming in the title. You need to delete these too. Thank you to kaosgirl and Snapdragon over on the official forums for bringing this to my attention. Now you should empty your Trash. Restarting your Mac wouldn’t hurt either.

Once you’ve done all that you can start reinstalling the game again, patching after the Base game and each subsequent EP and SP if prompted. It is always advisable to patch using thesuper patch. Just to be on the safe side I always reinstall in the order the EPs and SPs were released:

The Sims 3

World Adventures (EP01)

High End Loft (SP01)

Ambitions (EP02)

Fast Lane (SP02)

Late Night (EP03)

Outdoor Living (SP03)

Generations (EP04)

Town Life (SP04)

Pets (EP05)

Master Suite (SP05)

Showtime (EP06)

Sweet Treats (SP06)

Diesel (SP07)

Supernatural (EP07)

Seasons (EP08)

70’s, 80’s & 90’s (SP08)

University Life (EP09)

Island Paradise (EP10)

Movie Stuff (SP09)

Into the Future (EP11)

If you want to cleanly uninstall an Expansion/Stuff Pack follow this guide.

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174 thoughts on “The Sims 3 – How to do a clean uninstall and reinstall on a Mac”

Thank you for taking the time to share your experience and knowledge, Bluebellflora. Hugely useful and supportive. I can’t say I’m looking forward to uninstalling and reinstalling TS3, but at least I know I shall be doing a thorough de-cluttering job! All the best, Lita. 🙂

hi, I was wondering if the patch, and all the files are deleted and nothing is working, I have given up all hope. If I was to buy the sims 4 when it comes out tomorrow for mac, do you think it would work, or I should get someone to partition my mac to half pc and buy the sims 4 for pc

For some reason, my activation code isn’t working upon reinstallation. I can’t finish the installation (or even start, really) because when I type in the 25-digit code (the one on the back of the manual) the option “continue” isn’t made available. I’m operating on OSX 10.8.3 and I’m trying to reinstall The Sims 3 Pets Plus. Any ideas about what I should do?

I did all this but when I went to reinstall my game it always freezes. (I downloaded it from origin without a problem, but when I went to install it it’ll freeze with 5 minutes remaining) Any ideas on what’s wrong or how to fix this?

I had the same problem!!! I wiped all of the files off like she said, then went into Macintosh Hard Drive (or however you get in on a pc), Origin, deleted the installer with the sims 3, deleted origin, went into finder, got into Library (by pressing alt), searched (in the search bar) The Sims #, and there was a file unaccounted for called The Sims 3! I deleted it and re-installed origin and then re-downloaded. Worked fine for me but do tell if it doesn’t work. Good luck and Happy Simming! ☺︎

When I try to go onto The Sims 3 Uninstaller it says, “The alias ‘The Sims 3 Uninstaller’ can’t be opened because the original item can’t be found”, but it gives me three options.
1. Delete Alias
2. Fix Alias…
3. OK

I am playing on a fairly new Mac and I just uploaded Island Paradise. I try to update my game often and when I got the notification to update it before playing today, I did. My game downloaded a new patch and the 1.55 version update. However, after it finished verifying and applying the update, the launcher gives me the message, “Some files have been modified, please reinstall.” I do not want to reinstall my entire game. I tried simply uninstalling and reinstalling Island Paradise and I continued to get the same message after downloading the update.

Do you know of a way around this problem? I’d like to keep my game updated.

please help i cant start up my sims 3 and its killing me whenever i start it up everything is normal i go to the start up screen but when i press the play button it says please insert sims 3 showtime disc and after i inserted it it ejected (i use a mac btw)

I’m having the same issue (except with Into the Future, although I own Showtime as well) and I was thinking of uninstalling it and then installing the digital version from Origin. I read somewhere that you can do it free of charge if you bought a hard copy of the EP and registered it, do you know anything about this / how I would go about doing it? I don’t see anything on Origin about it, although I could just be missing it. Thanks!

Hi BluebellFlora,
How can I uninstall a single EP without the uninstaller, which has magically disappeared since I installed it on Mavericks a while back? I have recently installed el capitan and am now experiencing the disc cannot be found failure. Elsewhere on the forum you say to uninstall te EP and play it through origin, however I can only find your manual to uninstall everything and not just the one EP (and if it could be prevented I’d rather not delete everything but that last EP).
Thanks!

hi so i did everything but i need to mention this was a download and not a cd copy so i only found two transgaming.sims files, is that good or bad? so before i empty the trash i need to know if this is ok

I recently upgraded to Mavericks, uninstalled and freshly installed using your simple guide. First time I have ever been able to use all of my SIMS 3 expansions and worlds on a MAC with NO issues. Thank you.

I just did this, thanks :3 Will be installing the games again, for the 50th time. Before this whenever I reinstalled always 1 expansion didn’t work. First it was island paradise, where origin said it was installed but it wasnt. Then it was showtime. This time it was pets, the icon in my applications folder was there but I couldnt uninstall it through the uninstaller and it didnt appear on my launcher Managed to find the files for it and deleted it. Hopefully this time it dont screw up

Hi, hoping you have an idea since I’ve found no one else who does. What do I do if the uninstaller fails? I open it, select a program — I’ve tried them all from the first to the most recent — and I get the same message each time inside the Uninstaller itself: “Uninstaller failed”. Is there any help for that?

Drag everything Sims 3 related to the bin from your Applications folder, the Electronic Arts folder in your Documents folder and then all the files in the Library. Empty the Trash securely then restart your Mac. If you have Origin installed you should do the same because it may still think you have TS3 installed.

You’ve helped me SO much with my simming issues on my brand spanking new 2012 MacBook Pro (running OS X Mavericks). It’s about two months old and I started playing Sims in early December 2013 and starting having problems about a week later. Your careful and simple instruction is so helpful and I wanted to take the time to let you know that I appreciate your hard work! Hopefully uninstalling and reinstalling using your instructions will help the problems I’ve been having recently. 🙂

My uninstaller is in my Sims 3 folder, and if I remove it it doesn’t open. Is it safe to uninstall first and then delete the Sims 3 folder? Also, do I need the individual uninstallers for each expansion pack?

Seems like you have a been a huge help to other so far, so fingers crossed you’ll be able to solve my issue! I used to have TS3, installed originally from a CD. It was un-installed years ago and the CD was misplaced. Yesterday I purchased the starter pack off of the Origin site and had no issues installing it on another computer in the house (PC) now trying to install it to my computer (MAC). The origin application that was installed yesterday is not showing an install/download option beside the base TS3’s game only seeing a “play” option (but the three expansion packs are) Of course I know I need the base to download the expansions. When I click on the “play” option just to see what happens I receive an error “service initialization failed (0x0175dcbb)”. At this point I have manually uninstalled every TS3 item on the computer manually as I cannot even find the game in the system anymore, also uninstalled origin app and still not seeing an option to install the base TS3 game.(as the origin support page suggested). I tried out of curiosity to install a patch for the base game incase i was missing the file but no luck. Any suggestions? My OS is Maverick.

You’ve been of wonderfull help already, because I couldn’t play sims 3. And now it works. But I wanted to install the sims 3 Pets also, but whenever I do that, I get that same error. And when I uninstall Pets I can play again, but I really want to play with the sism 3 Pets.

Anyone got a clue how it can be that the Sims 3 works, but when I install Pets it doesn’t work anymore?

I’m really glad, because my sims 3 works now. But whenever I want to install the ep Pets, it gives this error again. But if I uninstall Pets, I can play again. But ofcourse I want to play with Pets. Anyone got a clue how that could be? And how I can make it work?

I un-installed Orgin, re-installed my game, then it said “an unknown error has occurred.” again. 😦 should I email EA? Should I keep trying to re-install and un-install? ( Sorry to take your time with this )

how did you fix this?
I bought TS3 + 2 extensions but changed computer just then and it didn’t have a cd player… So i thought I’d download Origin and activate the games through download. I registered all 3 cds with their keys. Installation was fine, but the games, even though installed and appearing in Origin as “mine” and downloaded do not ever start. So I bought a CD driver installed on my Mac, which accepted the authentification keys and tried to play. but i keep on getting “unknown error occurred”

err… this is so very upsetting. none of the Sim gurus even reply. Looks like it happens to a lot of people but no reply that allows me to fix it. If anybody here has had this issue… thanks a lot
Ps: read your blog on the Troll… crazy. so made me think that I never have any tech issue with TS freeplay. when they are trying to get your money it all works very well. but you ve already paid them a game, they dont give a damn… Honestly shameful. i have not been able to play this game since I bought it…

Ok so I uninstalled everything and it now advances past verifying installer but it now freezes at installing 3 of file 517. Any ideas on how to get it to move past this ? Has anyone else had this problem?

Hey, I’ve been asking for help on the origin forum, but no one has a clue what to do…. I had a cracked copy of the game with a bunch of ep’s. I decided to buy the games through Origin and download them, so I followed your clean uninstall. I deleted every file with com.transgaming in the title, except for those pertaining Medieval. But now Origin won’t give me the option to download the base game, just play it, which obviously won’t work since i don’t have the program installed. The ep’s are downloading fine, but are obviously useless unless I can get a base game up and running…. Any ideas? I’ve got nothing by this point….

Hi there Im no expert but I had sims on my mac and when I downloaded an update funny things started happening to my game i.e. the sims kept freezing and disappearing. I tried to uninstall it and reinstall it off the disk I had. But it wouldn’t work. I also found some sims 3 files in my sims castaway folder after deleting these and buying a new disk i was able to drop and drag it into the finder icon and then open and install it from there. But I had to delete the electronic arts folder and all my sims games I deleted the castaway game as well. The files in the library and the installer in the applications folder. I found I had to access it through finder as if I went straight into applications it didn’t show up. The then restarted my mac and then I was able to install the new disk. Hope that helps. I did read on another blog that someone contacted an online expert through origin to sort their problem. Maybe you could do that. I saw that on the origin hq site

Hi, I have followed your instructions so far but when I go to completely empty the trash before doing a restart it tells me “The operation can’t be completed because the item “com.transgaming.thesims3.plist” is in use.” any idea what I can do? Thank you.

Thank you for your help! I spoke to one of the EA staff and they couldn’t help me when my game wouldn’t launch after installing University Life (it was running previously with various EP’s just fine). I knew I had to patch the game but couldn’t do it through the Launcher and even the file for the manual patcher wouldn’t download (I left my computer on overnight to see if it was just a crazy big file!). This is my first Mac computer, so I literally have no idea what I’m doing!

I just thought I’d leave you a note to let you know that if people follow these steps and have purchased their games through Origin, each one of them will need to be re-downloaded prior to being re-installed. I am probably a bit silly for not realising that sooner but I have always purchased games on disc up until now.

Not sure if it will work yet, waiting for the base game to download so I can patch it, but I’m hopeful, and it was much more helpful than the EA staff…So thank you! 🙂

i got sims 3 from origin it worked fine on the first day then when i wanted to play again it would go to the sims launcher when i press play it would go black and it says “exception raised” and it says do you wish to debug it … what should i do i click yes and nothing happens

After MUCH aggravation in trying to figure out how to solve my daughter’s Sims issues, and swearing to never again spend one more penny on any EA products, I stumbled upon your site. Thank-you! Your directions were easy to follow and worked like a charm. She was even able to get updates that hadn’t worked before. Thank-you, again, for sharing your expertise.

So I am going to start off by saying I am really not tech-savvy at some point haha.

Recently upgraded my hard drive, and was updated to Yosemite. Reinstalled my Sims 3, Ambitions, and Generations (in that order), and now I’ve experienced the same issue as user ‘Kourtney’ (post date/time: April 5, 2013 at 8:56 pm, if that helps) where I cannot locate any of the files/folders you mention in the original post.
My issue is that the Sims 3 (or Generations which is what I prefer to play) icon shows up in my dash, but the Welcome Screen does not show up completely, so I cannot click on the Play, Upload, Downloads, etc icons at all. I have scoured the web for other resources, even brought my computer in to Geek Squad and a few other places that can usually help with software installation/performance issues, and have found nothing to solve my problem.

Okay I so I went and deleted all the transgaming documents and stuff in the library before I did the uninstaller, and now its saying its in the uninstallation process but its taking forever so I don’t know if its actually working. Does it matter that I deleted those things first? Or should I just wait it out and see if it works?

Earlier today i was deleting stuff from my desktop and accidentally deleted the sims 3 icon -thinking the one in my dock would do just the same. After doing this I decided to play some sims, and when i went to click on the icon on my dock it had a question mark infront/on the icon! i then went on to re-install my games from origin, and a notification saying unable to install came up. i then follow all the steps on this trying to uninstall everything from my mac having to the with sims in hopes of being able to reinstall it again, and still after following this the same notification pops up saying it is unable to install! HELP PLEASE!

Thank you. Thank you. THANK YOU. I had tried so many other possible solutions to get the “Unknown Error Has Occurred” to let me play my game as well as spent 4 hours on hold with EA (both phone and chat) before giving up from not reaching humans. I did this reset as a last resort. And it worked. And I’m sending you a HUGE Internet hug. *HUG*

Hi! I deleted all of the file folders like you suggested. My uninstaller still will not work. It gives me the error that it can’t open the application “the sims 3 Uninstaller” because it may be damaged or incomplete”. Im sure you have probably answered this a bunch of times. I must be missing something though….I read through the instructions 3 times already…

Hey! I just wanted to thank you for this post! This + the resetting RAM post have saved my life. I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled before, but that was just the basics, and I could never work out why all my saves were still playable, when I wanted EVERYTHING gone. Also, I couldn’t patch – It would ask me if I wanted to, and when I agreed, the downloading box would just sit there without the progress bar!!! After following your instructions to the letter, I have just reinstalled the base game and am patching it as I type. It’s actually working!!!

Hello, so I followed the steps listed above but I’m having an issue with emptying three of the files saying that the item is in use, but I can’t find where? I force quit everything and it still said it

I unfortunately cannot find that Preferences folder on my mac in the library folder. Is it possible since I haven’t yet been able to play my game fully that it isn’t there yet? Or is it hidden? Its a brand new computer. Macbook Pro Retina 10.10.3. Yosemite.

I don’t think I saw anybody mention this, because I don’t think anyone else has run into it, but I did this on my moms Mac for her, and for some reason store content won’t go in game. I can download it and put it in the launcher to be installed, and then I install it but none of the content shows up in game, and in the launcher it says that everything is installed. Do you have any idea of what this could be?

Hello there! I followed all the steps to uninstall the sims 3 on my old mac (OSX Yosemite), as I have transferred everything to a better computer and want to free up all the space my game takes up on the old mac. I looked at the mac’s storage and only 7 GB were freed up by doing this. I have all but 3 expansion packs installed so I know that it should be much more than that. I looked in the launchpad and the sims 3 as well as the other expansion packs were still there. Help please?

Hello, i did all of what you said to do in your instructions. as i was emptying my trash on my mac, “com.transgaming.thesims3.plist” will not delete. i am not sure why. it says that The operation can’t be completed because the item “com.transgaming.thesims3.plist” is in use. but i don’t know where to tell it to not be in use. please help. i don’t want to reinstall my games before i delete this

Yes, unless you keep your Sims 3 folder in Documents > Electronic Arts. The amount of time it takes depends on how fast your CPU is, what kind of internal storage you have, the speed of your disc drive/download speed, there is no fixed amount of time.

Hey, thanks for you help! I did everything you said and was able to finally delete it fully. Unfortunately I deleted the electronic arts folder and deleted my trash bin as well. now its gone! I was too quick here.. what can i do now? When I try to reinstall it, it gets stuck at the file 3 from 8xx. Hope you can help me!!!

I just got a new Mac Mini. I was playing on a PC before i got my Mac Mini and all of my expansion packs are still on there. I was wondering if I could reinstall all of my expansion packs onto my Mac Mini. Could you help me?

Please Help!
I have a 2015 macbook air OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 and just downloaded sims 3 and sims 3 pets with Origin I have not been able to play at all. The game launcher screen pops up and I press play but then a screen pops up with the green simolian thing with a blue background but just freezes and never lets me get to the actual game I’ve “force quit” idk how many times, uninstalled and reinstalled 3 times, following your tutorial and the game just won’t ever fully start up and allow me to play 😦

I tried going through the steps you have above. On my EL Capitan there’s no cider preferences folder. Sims 3 preferences, yes. But there aren’t any files titled com.transgaming. I even did a search just in case. None.

Hello! I’ve followed everything up to downloading the World Adventures EP and when you say “…start reinstalling the game again, patching after the Base game and each subsequent EP and SP if prompted” when i click CTRL and open (i have macOS Sierra) do i click TS3 again or TS3 World Adventure?

I have play TS3 on my macbook from origin before and it worked just fine but I decided to deleted because my macbook was being slow. So one day, I decide to installed TS3, which took a LONG time! I finally got it installed and decided to play. When launching the game, I clicked the large big PLAY button. It’s loading but suddenly it just quit on me every freaken time I play it. This happened sooo many times that I decided to factory reset my macbook. I tried to reinstall it after, however, it still does the same thing. What should I do???! HELP!!!!!!

Hi,
Thanks for the good advice and its just lately that I’ve had this problem; When I install Late Night and Ambitions, they cause an “unknown error” to pop up and the game won’t load. When I go to the sims folder in the applications drive, those games are not listed but they do show up in the “uninstall” list in the folder. When I uninstall both games the game loads and plays fine. I’ve contacted EA, they offer the same advice you do with the exception of the order in which to install the games (they say reverse order); it has not made a difference. I’ve deleted every tansgame and sims file in preferences, cache, cookies, emptied trash, restarted but LN and AMB will just not show up and cause the “unknown error” I’m tired of waiting hours every few days for EA techs to tell me the same thing with no resolutions. Thanks

In addition to all those com.transgaming files in my Preferences folder, I also happened to find a folder labeled “The Sims 3 Preferences” that wasn’t mentioned in this article. In THAT folder there aren’t any com.transgaming files, but various exec files and .reg files, as well as one labeled “wineserver-[name of my device]”. I don’t know if I should delete it since it wasn’t mentioned in this guide and you warned of the dangers of deleting other files in the Preferences folder. Thoughts?

When I use the uninstaller for TS3 it asks me to pick a game to uninstall but nothing comes up in the selection box. I’m so frustrated bc I was getting the “Game Disc Not Found” error when the disc was inserted and I’m going through this whole process of trying to get this damn game to work. I used to play it a couple years ago but then got TS4 and uninstalled it for some reason and now I’ve attempted to get the game again but its been giving me problems ever since. >:0

Hi! So it’s July 2018, I’m super late, and I’m sure a lot has changed since 2013! I was following your instructions, and was wondering, should I delete com.transgaming.thesims3… files I found elsewhere? Found some hidden in Library> Application Support> com.apple.sharedfilelist> com.apple.LSSharedFileList.ApplicationRecentDocuments

All I did was search com.transgaming in the Library folder and that came up. I’m guessing it’s a minor thing though. I have a feeling this will be enough, especially because as I was looking it was clear my game installed totally wrong (no launcher whatsoever, no Electronic Arts folder, and the uninstaller didnt even find a game to uninstall. womp. Major fail EA, lol. Though probably my fault for uninstalling incorrectly)

Also wanted to add, for users not as computer savvy, there maybe com.transgaming files that belong to OTHER origin games so make sure you look for something sims-related in the name! com.transgaming.nancydrew… was one of the ones I noticed on my computer 🙂

I have Sims 3 installed on 3 Macs and I don’t have any Transgaming files in the com.apple.sharedfilelist folder on any of them. What’s the exact file name? I’ve asked another help to check their Mac and see if they have them too. Thank you so much or giving me the heads up, I’ll add it to the article when I have the file name 🙂

Hey thanks for the prompt reply! Your clean uninstall made my game work!!! yay! (that is until I also installed all the expansions. ugh! back we go. I also don’t see the supposed “bootstrap.exe” anywhere. only cider.)

I’m not sure of the names of those ones, or even why they were there! I already deleted them 😦 After the successful reinstall of my base game, (and the subsequent failed reinstall of my expansions) those files are NOT there!!! So that is just totally bizarre. I’m on a Mac Air High Sierra, doubt that changes anything though.

Ok so I may be completely stupid here but I cannot even find my library folder. I’m running High Sierra on my 2017 iMac. I cannot run TS3 because I get the unknown error message…I cannot uninstall because no game shows up to uninstall…I only have the base game at the moment and I’m getting really frustrated because I cannot get TS3 to work…I have TS4 but it just is not as good in my opinion. Please help oh wise one!

I have the same problem. I am running on a MacBook Pro – Mid 2014 – os Mojave 10.14. I was installing for the first time. Got the Launcher to open once, then started to load expansion packs. Now all I get is the Unknown error message. It is terribly frustrating, and I hear Sims 4 is not totally worth it. Did you get this to work. I also have nothin appear when the uninstaller is open…

thank you so much for this guide! unfortunately after a week straight of trying to install TS3 on a new computer, reinstalling it using this guide, & resolving the “unknown error” message upon launch, i am still having graphics issues that prevent me from playing the game. i’m pretty much ready to give up, but nonetheless i am grateful for your website

Thank you so much! Your guide just solved my problem! I’m so thankful for your Website. I had to deal with the “Unknown error”, have tried to uninstall everything and reinstalled it a couple of time but it seems there still were some files left. Now at least my main game is working and I’m excited to see if I cal install the EPs and SPs, too.